happy endings
by olivia d'trumpet
Summary: I read the Lady of Shallot and thought it needed a better ending for Elaine.


I own naught but the twist in the story

Twist, snip, click

Twist, snip, click

The soothing sounds of the shuttle fill the room. Colors from the images of the outside world come together. I happen to look up into my accursed mirror, and I see a beautiful man bending down to take a drink from the river. I don't turn knowing I will die if I do. So I go back to my weaving and night then falls turning the tower dark as black.

Pitiless black that fills my life, the color reminds me of the fairy who cursed me. Shining black, the color of his hair, I wonder how such a depressing color can have two so very different sides. I start a new tapestry, filled with black and silver stars to get him out of my head.

He comes back, and now I notice his skin, a beautiful light brown. He smiles now at a remembered joke and a flash of white teeth break his tan. Again I fight against the urge to turn, and concentrate on my tapestry. I thread gold to outline the stars: A wondrous thing, this color, so shiny and cheerful with its winking ways. He leaves the river and I breathe a sigh of relief, for now I'm not in danger anymore. He leaves me to my lonely ways. Morning comes and the sky is blue like a robin's egg, something I've seen in my mirror. Like his surcoat from yesterday, the color of strength, perseverance….forgiveness. But why should I forgive her, she ruined my life. And now I am unable to find love. But no matter, what I can't change I will accept. I've finished my tapestry and search for something else to depict. He is back at the river today. Why won't he leave me alone? And then my mirror, my accursed mirror chooses to focus on him. He has light green eyes that flash from his face. Again I resist looking at him with my own eyes, and I wish he would leave; it is like he is looking into my soul. Then he bends down to drink and I sigh in relief for his eyes are now hidden from me. And for the first time I feel a stirring in my heart. What a perplexing sensation. No matter.

Night falls again and I fall asleep and dream of him. He is kind and courteous like a knight should be. I ask him to leave for he puts me in great peril but he says no, he is looking for a way to save me. I wake up and think of green. Green like life, green like jealousy. Yes I am jealous of his life. Yes that is the reason I am tempted to look and I decide to become content with my surroundings. He comes again the next day and I almost scream in frustration, yet a miniscule part of me is glad that he came but still…

I again dream of him tonight; I ask him his name, this knight. His name was Lancelot and in return for his name I gave him mine, Elaine, lady of Shallot. I ask him to leave me alone. And again he politely refuses, stating some ridiculous reason for staying.

I wake up crying in anger. My prison, my tower, two interchangeable names. Both mean the same thing. He isn't at the river today and for that I'm glad. A year passes before he comes again. Lancelot's face has acquired a saddened look, the look of many days of heartless toil. A furrow appears between his brow and I am filled with the urge to smooth it. I suppress it and return to my weaving; a figure standing in the wood with shadows across its face.

I dream again tonight of him. I restrain myself from running to him and he tells me that he has won my heart back from the malevolent fairy who cursed me. That was where he has been for the past year that was why he left me in loneliness. He saved me as he had intended. Lancelot has it in his hand and then presses it into my chest. A flood of emotions, rampantly gush through me and I look at Lancelot in a new light, a brighter light filled with warmth and gentle breeze. I wonder why he did this. If he had saved me because he was charged with the task, or if…. But I give myself no hope of this. For who could love a caged soul, who had previously been without a heart? I wake up and forgive the fairy for how could I not?

She had given me him, even if only through a dream. I wake up eager, at least eager to see Lancelot. But this morning he was not alone, a golden woman came to stand beside him. I fall down and begin to feel my heart to break. The image, vicious image will not allow me to look away. I see the tenderness in his eyes and the adoration in hers. My heart beating, breaking, beating, breaking. I don't sleep that night not wishing to dream of him. A year passes and he doesn't return. I pretend to forget him as he has seemingly forgotten me. And I curse the day he gave my heart back to me, for although he has broken one curse he has put another one on me. The pain is so ravaging that I don't understand how anyone can go on with a broken heart. But somehow I manage to.

Twist, snip click

Twist, snip, click

Two years have passed since that day I saw them at the river. And somehow I managed to escape from the tower and make a new life for myself. And I still weave, beautiful things, lovely things. But every day I wake up still feeling trapped. Several men have tried to pay court to me but I have forsworn love. For who needs heartbreak and imagined feelings? My heart, well that I keep in a box. I hear someone breathing behind me. I turn and it's him. I restrain myself for I fear that I have gone insane with longing, and I have never understood why I did not go mad. But Lancelot does not curtail his response. He walks up slowly and takes my face carefully in his hands. Lancelot, I breathe. He does not reply with words but a kiss.

My life is like one of my tapestries. Filled with change and heartache that join together to form a beautiful image. And still the Fates weave it.

Twist, snip, click

Twist, snip, click


End file.
